Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This At Home

To prepare for this review, I rented a DVD featuring all the Backyard Wrestling crew and what I saw left me with my jaw dropped down.  A young man from New Jersey climbed up on his roof and threw himself off it just to land on his buddy who was laying flat on a table and shattered it while really hurting his friend.  In another segment, two combatants are at each another’s throats when one of them picks up a garbage can and slams it into his opponent’s head to the point that the man starts bleeding profusely.  Sounds like fun?  It might be but thanks to Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home for the Xbox, it’s best do that in a video game . . . unless you think spending the week in the Intensive Care Unit wing is your idea of a weekend getaway. 

Backyard Wrestling, if you haven’t seen the infomercials or seen the actual videos themselves, strays far from the regulation-style wrestling WWE fans are familiar with and does so with far less drama and more physical violence.  That’s right, anything goes in this style of wrestling and that means you won’t get very far in this wrestling circuit if you don’t break a two-by-four over somebody’s head.  The winner of these matches is the one that’s still standing and not passed out over a puddle of their own blood.

The game offers three modes of playing the game: Talk Show Mode, Exhibition and Bonus Games.  Exhibition mode allows you to use any wrestler and location you happen to unlock in the game’s main story mode, Talk Show Mode, and allows you to play against a friend.  Bonus Games comes with Survival mode (fight as many opponents as possible), King of the Hill (go up against a friend and dominate a location) and Tag (whoever gets knocked down during the match is it).

Talk Show Mode doesn’t really follow your chosen wrestler per se but it’s certainly connected with the location in which you do most of your wrestling.  You are thrust into many unlikely locations that push the idea that this type of wrestling franchise is the kind that can be done anywhere.  One day you’re fighting in a backyard fit for a backwoods redneck and the next you’re in a meat locker with slabs of beef nearby.  The wrestling, though, is all the same.

Basically you’re placed on the environment with plenty of weapons scattered all around for you to use during the match.  There’s baseball bats laced with barbwire, two-by-fours and even objects like chairs, television sets and shopping carts filled with junk.  The wrestlers all come complete with a variety of moves as well so you’ll definitely be able to climb up a roof and drop down on a dazed or punch drunk opponent.  Here all you have to do is knock an opponent down and don’t even bother to pin them.

So with all these brutal moves and regulation rules tossed out the windows, why isn’t Backyard Wrestling very fun?  The trouble falls with the frustrating opponent AI and the controls that have you running around the environment looking for a brick or basketball to toss than performing wild moves.  We’ll start with the controls first.  Control-wise, Backyard Wrestling has a few grappling moves and counter moves to keep you from eating pavement. Yet often times you’ll be doing more throwing or swinging bats than actually performing a pile driver or a toilet seat (that’s when you bend your knees as if making a human seat and slamming your opponent’s back into your knees).

On to the frustrating AI, which is truly the game’s biggest problem.  The opponents usually never miss when they toss something at you and they’re a lot quicker to counter a move than you.  Now this usually makes for a challenging bout, but it’s frustrating when your entire moves end up with you getting grabbed by the neck before you can even press the counter button.  Secondly, there is not much skill needed to actually defeat an opponent.  All you have to do is kick and punch until you stun said wrestler and then attempt a grappling move. 

Visually, the game is not bad -looking at all.  In fact, the environments look pretty good since there is just too many nicely detailed objects all around you.  The many wild characters are also nicely rendered and watching the Insane Clown Posse get massacred during a match is a hilarious sight to behold.  The game is very bloody and actually very brutal, though, and you’ll see it once a wrestler receives a bat to the cranium.  The blood effects are done realistically enough and you’ll even get to see facial damage as well as heavy splattering of blood when noses are broken.  Trust me, this is the reason this game received its Mature rating. 

Sound-wise, Backyard Wrestling has plenty of tunes to keep you company during the match and you can switch tunes even in the middle of a fight.  You’ll find a multitude of songs from the Insane Clown Posse to Bowling For Soup, Andrew W. K., and even Rancid.  There’s even decent voice work and sound effects that certainly sound good enough to make you wince.

Backyard Wrestling has a long way to go if it wants to impress us with its fresh take on the wrestling genre and, thanks to its many flaws, its few good qualities are overshadowed by its many bad ones.  While the game has good graphics and plenty of Backyard Wrestling antics, the actual wrestling itself is flawed by many frustrating factors.  If you’re curious for something different, you wouldn’t go wrong with a rental, otherwise stay away.  

Gameplay: 6.0
The game’s downfall is its controls and the opponent AI that keeps the game from being fun despite its use of weapons and anything-goes appeal.  The majority of matches are spent dashing through the environment and hurling basketballs or other assortment of objects at your opponent and, while you can swing a bat into your foe’s chest, your opponent can easily counter you and send plenty more hurt your way.  

Graphics: 7.5
While not visually stunning, the game is still pretty decent to look at and you can’t help but smile at the various character types (there’s everything from crazed clowns to comely strippers) that are rendered pretty nicely.  The environments themselves are filled with plenty of eye-catching details, but it’s the damage done to the characters that really shine through.  Smash a brick into your opponent’s face and his face becomes a bloody mess.  Yes, it’s pretty brutal setting somebody on fire or smacking him across the head with a lamppost but this game does it so good you can’t help but watch.  

Sound: 8.0
The game certainly doesn’t lack in the tunes department because there are just so many songs in the play list that you won’t feel the need to add your own tunes to the mix.  That is, of course, if heavy hitting tunes from Sepultura, Anthrax and Biohazard aren’t your cup of tea.  The sound effects also work nicely in this game and while the game is filled with pained grunts and cries, the sound of a bat smacking against flesh sounds painful.  There’s also some pretty decent voice work and many of the characters have pretty hilarious lines and taunts.

Difficulty: Hard
Going up against the computer-controlled opponents will leave you pretty frustrated and the reason is simple--they’re all just too good at everything.  Dodging things your foes toss at you might seem easy but somehow the object always finds its target.  Counter a move and suddenly Violent J counters your counter move without even trying.  Sounds unfair?  It is, indeed.  Sounds challenging?  It most definitely isn’t.

Concept: 6.0
The intention behind this game was to breathe new life into the wrestling genre while offering something completely different from the WWE wrestling titles on the Xbox, and, for the most part, it does just that.  There are plenty of lively characters to choose from and unlock in this game and its pretty fun to find these assortment of characters among the lineup.  There’s also the option to create your own wrestler but the design options are very limited. 

Multiplayer: 7.0
The game actually feels a bit better when going up against a friend rather than playing against a computer-controlled opponent.  The reason for this is now you’re playing somebody that’s more likely to make mistakes and actually swing and miss. You can wrestle a buddy in the Exhibition mode as well as the bonus game modes such as King of the Hill and Tag.

Overall: 6.5
Backyard Wrestling could have been one of those great alternatives to the WWE wrestling titles, but its many flaws are just too numerous to make this one any fun.  The sad thing is that the game has all the elements that make up a really brutal and entertaining game and the graphics aren’t very bad at all. If you want a different wrestling game on your Xbox, this one will certainly make a pretty good rental.